Race Report- LA Half Marathon 12/02/2007
Pre-Race Dinner: Dinner at Shabu Shabu House in Little Tokyo. I grubbed to my heart's content! 2 orders of rice and the meat..yumm..I tried to hold off on the veggies, but had some anyway. J and I met up with my cousins, aunts, and uncle there, so it was fun times. After dinner, we went to the mom and pop shop next door for some green tea ice cream.
Pre-Race Zzz's: 5 hours. :( I know I should have gotten more, but I was so anxious.
4:30am Sunday: I'm up and getting ready. Tried to eat some toast with peanut butter but just couldn't stomach all of it. I ate half of it, though.
~6:30am: J drops me off. There's a good # of people there. I'm excited to see the heating lamps, but see the huge crowd of people crowded under them! With the temps being around the low 50s (maybe even in the 40s), it was tough to warm up, but I managed to jog around the LA Zoo parking lot anyway. I mostly people watched and just mentally prepared myself.
7:30am Racetime!: Someone lost their contact around this time. Yikes.=/ We jogged away from the parking lot and into Griffith Park through a dirt trail, through the tunnel and then going up along the LA River. These first 6-7 miles were easy, and I was feeling pretty good!
Hyperion Bridge was the first challenge for me since it was going uphill. I was scolding myself for not doing enough hill training at this point. Then, we ran along the residential parts of Echo Park. I have to commend the volunteers and supporters. They were such great motivators!!!! There were some neighbors in their PJs cheering us on and playing, "I Love LA", on the radio. Loved it! :) I also liked the high school drum bands. They were awesome, and the drum beats helped a lot with keeping my tempo.
By mile 9, I was feeling the blisters and the ankle pain.
Mile 10-11 was running through Silverlake..again on a dirt path which was such a relief to my already sore feet and legs!
Mile 11- This was when I felt officially discouraged. I kept stopping to walk up the hill because my feet and legs just couldn't take it anymore. I coulda cared less about my time at this point. I ate more of my Clif Gel electrolyte chews, which kind of gave me a boost. They stopped putting up the mile markers after 10, so I really had no idea how much more we had to run.
Mile 12/13-Once we entered downtown LA and crossed Temple, I was ecastatic!!! We ran through a tunnel where we were just yelling out to try to hype ourselves up for the big finish. I tried blocking the pain out with not much luck.=/
Honestly, I was just waaaayy too tired to really remember crossing the finish line. I do remember the surge of runners around me ...probably out of pure adrenaline, I managed to go through the finish line with 18 seconds before my target time of 2 hours.
Then, someone handed me a medal and one of those gold wrap thingys..I walked around to find J and my dad.
All in all, it was a great race. It was well organized, and the supporters and volunteers were awesome.
Also, I've learned my lesson--- get at least 7 hours of sleep the night before and work on the hill training!
I'm not sure if I'll be ready for the LA Marathon in March. After finishing that half, I seriously wondered how people can do a full marathon..a half is challenging enough as it is, but who knows? It's still in 3 months, and I'm already thinking of when my next run will be.
My thighs have been sore the past 2 days, but I'm already itching to run. I think I'm addicted.=P I'm already planning on doing a 10-miler sometime this weekend-- maybe even on Friday.
So yeah...YAY!!!!!!! Running seriously is addicting.
12/2/2007 Los Angeles CA
City of Angels Half Marathon - Half Marathon Bib: ###Name: Marissa Gender: F Age: 27 Hometown: San Diego CA Place Overall: 1065 out of 3307 Women: 268 out of 1653 F 25-29: 39 out of 277 AgeGrade: 54.62% Place: 1062 FINISH: 1:59:42 pace: 9:08 10K: 56:02 pace: 9:01 Chip Time: 1:59:42 Gun Time: 2:02:17
Pre-Race Zzz's: 5 hours. :( I know I should have gotten more, but I was so anxious.
4:30am Sunday: I'm up and getting ready. Tried to eat some toast with peanut butter but just couldn't stomach all of it. I ate half of it, though.
~6:30am: J drops me off. There's a good # of people there. I'm excited to see the heating lamps, but see the huge crowd of people crowded under them! With the temps being around the low 50s (maybe even in the 40s), it was tough to warm up, but I managed to jog around the LA Zoo parking lot anyway. I mostly people watched and just mentally prepared myself.
7:30am Racetime!: Someone lost their contact around this time. Yikes.=/ We jogged away from the parking lot and into Griffith Park through a dirt trail, through the tunnel and then going up along the LA River. These first 6-7 miles were easy, and I was feeling pretty good!
Hyperion Bridge was the first challenge for me since it was going uphill. I was scolding myself for not doing enough hill training at this point. Then, we ran along the residential parts of Echo Park. I have to commend the volunteers and supporters. They were such great motivators!!!! There were some neighbors in their PJs cheering us on and playing, "I Love LA", on the radio. Loved it! :) I also liked the high school drum bands. They were awesome, and the drum beats helped a lot with keeping my tempo.
By mile 9, I was feeling the blisters and the ankle pain.
Mile 10-11 was running through Silverlake..again on a dirt path which was such a relief to my already sore feet and legs!
Mile 11- This was when I felt officially discouraged. I kept stopping to walk up the hill because my feet and legs just couldn't take it anymore. I coulda cared less about my time at this point. I ate more of my Clif Gel electrolyte chews, which kind of gave me a boost. They stopped putting up the mile markers after 10, so I really had no idea how much more we had to run.
Mile 12/13-Once we entered downtown LA and crossed Temple, I was ecastatic!!! We ran through a tunnel where we were just yelling out to try to hype ourselves up for the big finish. I tried blocking the pain out with not much luck.=/
Honestly, I was just waaaayy too tired to really remember crossing the finish line. I do remember the surge of runners around me ...probably out of pure adrenaline, I managed to go through the finish line with 18 seconds before my target time of 2 hours.
Then, someone handed me a medal and one of those gold wrap thingys..I walked around to find J and my dad.
All in all, it was a great race. It was well organized, and the supporters and volunteers were awesome.
Also, I've learned my lesson--- get at least 7 hours of sleep the night before and work on the hill training!
I'm not sure if I'll be ready for the LA Marathon in March. After finishing that half, I seriously wondered how people can do a full marathon..a half is challenging enough as it is, but who knows? It's still in 3 months, and I'm already thinking of when my next run will be.
My thighs have been sore the past 2 days, but I'm already itching to run. I think I'm addicted.=P I'm already planning on doing a 10-miler sometime this weekend-- maybe even on Friday.
So yeah...YAY!!!!!!! Running seriously is addicting.
12/2/2007 Los Angeles CA
City of Angels Half Marathon - Half Marathon Bib: ###Name: Marissa Gender: F Age: 27 Hometown: San Diego CA Place Overall: 1065 out of 3307 Women: 268 out of 1653 F 25-29: 39 out of 277 AgeGrade: 54.62% Place: 1062 FINISH: 1:59:42 pace: 9:08 10K: 56:02 pace: 9:01 Chip Time: 1:59:42 Gun Time: 2:02:17